Weapon rebalance ideas/suggestions

from Elemental Forums

The game is pretty fun, though it kind of suffers from the same problem Sins has. Its this giant buildup to nothingness (end game sucks).

One little, easily-fixable thing that bothers me are the weapons. I've taken the liberty of redoing the stats in the coreweapons.xml, but I would love some advice, suggestions, or rants about how so and so weapon sucks or is op.

Spears- no shield, average damage, ignores counterattack, and armor piercing


The problem- There are two big questions I have to ask about spears. What benefit do I get in exchange for losing a shield? Why the heck is a spear considered armor piercing? (Greek bronze armor vs Persian spears for example)

My solution- +2, 4, 6 damage for respective levels of spears, they lose armor piercing, and they now have a range of 2.

Thoughts/Concerns- Might be too low damage. I'm just not sure how useful that 2 range is gonna be. I really like the tactical diversity to be had with range 2 spears hanging behind the damage soakers. I'm considering giving the pike range 3 to help show the evolution of the weapon in the face of better armor. Also considering making all spears 1 handed, and krax will just be better. Pikes will go back to being 2 handed except for krax.

Clubs- Above average damage, slow, shield, bash, and extreme overkill super ability.


The problem- I think the community in general feels that clubs are OP, and I'm not among them. Of course I use Teldar mostly, so I wouldn't. Anyway, clubs should be armor piercing. That's the entire theory behind the weapon afterall, isn't it? I also don't feel that they are quite slow enough.

My solution- -2, 4, 6 damage for respective levels of clubs, 33% armor piercing, -1 init (now at -5 for most)

Thought/Concerns- Serious concerns about them being OP if they weren't before. Maybe they should be brought to -6 init. On the plus side city militias will enjoy the benefit of being able to hurt more heavily-armored units, and since they have no armor themselves a sword/spear would be more ideal in cities.

Axes- Above average damage, slightly slow, cleave, and no shield

The problem- In my opinion this is the worst weapon type other then the staff. It has no advantage over a club and on top of that you can't use a shield. Its a giant freaking two-handed axe, and as far as I'm concerned the dual-wield ones are simply two giant two-handed axes being wielded by orcish brutes.

My solution- +2,4,6 damage respectively, +20% armor piercing(for a nice, good cleave),  -1 init.

Thoughts/Concerns- I'm not looking forward to getting cleaved by these mofos. Finally a weapon that Really screams "I want everything to die right now!" With a focused point, and a ton of weight the momentum behind an axe swing should have some armor-piercing qualities. I think dual-wield isn't right thought. Maybe give them +1 init and only +1,2,3 damage?

Swords-Average damage, slightly fast, shield, counter attack.

The problem- They just aint fast enough. While maces and axes pierce armor, swords do damage faster. A good swordsman in light armor needs to dance. The sword can't pierce armor well at all, especially if its used in a slashing motion, but they are great at being shoved into any weak points in the armor.

My solution- +1 init, +5 crit chance.

Thoughts/Concerns- The init can be abused by spellcasters, spells should have their own init values rather then be based off the weapon. The +1 init isn't much on its own, but when combined with the -init axes/maces get I hope the 'swing-speed' factor shines a little more. It takes so little pressure to pierce skin, and all that effort to swing a big mace around is really silly against an unarmored foe. Swords kill things without armor fast, and they hold the line pretty well too.

I also gave crossbows 50% armor piercing and a bigger init penalty because I can.

 

I'd like some input, because I can only play test so much.

thank you!

 

Edit: For balance sakes a play should restrict his mages to staffs. I'd make all weapons hinder spellcasting, but thats to much work. Other professions with spells can pass under the guise that they have training casting spells in combat, or something.

4,867 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Spears: Are actually better balanced now after the reduction in Armor Piercing.  Units designed around Spears are highly effective as Shock Troops on the first turn.

Clubs: I'm fine with them excepting that Bash is currently OP.  Clubs also have an advantage in that many of the upgrades do not require Metal

Axes: Two chances to hit a target.  Getting rid of Shields (Axes used to be one-handed) helped balance them out some.  Cleave can be really great, but I'm not too sure about the damage parity with other weapons at higher levels

Swords: Used to be considered the best before weapons were rebalanced., I like them for Casters due to the higher Initiative (as you noted).  Lands AoE spells faster than troops can react.  Too bad Counter Attack doesn't occur before damage is received by an Opposing Unit's Attack.

Bows: I like, seems mostly balanced out right now
Crossbows:  Don't use them as they seem underpowered compared to Bows.  I could be wrong on this.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

ended up giving maces a pretty large damage penalty, -1 init, and 50% armor piercing. Whats interesting is it balances out crushing blow at the same time since the max damage is much lower, while they do very dependable damage against armored targets. Sounds OP but the init penalty hurts and they don't generally 1 hit kill now.

Spears have range 2, no armor piercing, and a decent damage buff. (pike does 20 damage). Great for sitting behind something tough. They get swarm bonus at range 2 too.

Axes got a decent damage buff, 20% armor piercing, and -1 init. They pack alot of hurt. The berserker's go-to weapon for sure. Dual axes don't get an init penalty, and quite frankly, they scare me.

swords got +1 init. They are quite good. They always were.

Personally I feel that bows are pretty weak in general. My horsies run them down too fast.

 

Its nice so far. I actually care what weapons my units have.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting BernieTime, reply 1
Crossbows:  Don't use them as they seem underpowered compared to Bows.  I could be wrong on this.

 

The fact that you can carry a shield along with crossbows makes me like them a lot-- enemy archers always seem to focus my archers first, and the shield helps. Plus they have a somewhat decent crowd control ability.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

 

Here is the best weapon change possible:

Do I need to repeat that for anyone?

 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Staffs: Staffs are underpowered as of now. Staffs, not daggers, should be the choice for mages. All staffs should give an init boost of +3. I would also love to see a Staff of Haste with init +8 and the ability to cast haste for free. :D

Spears; Love the idea of extra range for spears. They should be stronger as you say and not AP.

Clubs: Good as they are but the bigger ones should be two-handed. These blunt weapons rely on being heavy so I can't understand how one would not swing it two-handed.

Axes: The smaller ones should be one-handed. This would make them more useful. The bigger two-handed ones should deal more damage.

Swords: Init boost here is silly. Swords are heavy. I would like to exchange it for a bonus to defence (+5/+10/+15) since swords can effectively be used to block attacks. Daggers should be +25% dodge but no init/def boost.

Bows/crossbows: Worthless as of now. They come way too late and are totally inferior to staves. If they had their init penalty removed they would be a more interesting choice. Especially with some HoF boost they would then be a reasonable alternative. I think shortbow should be range 6, longbow 8, Yew 12 or similar. Crossbows 66% AP but shorter range (3 and 5 respectively).

Shields: These are currently too good to be without. I am not a fan of penalties but perhaps an init penalty should be used here, especially on the bigger ones (-1/-2/-3/-4 maybe). Realistically there should be increased defence/dodge against ranged attacks.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

A question from me since I'm not a modder: Is it possible to configure abilities that activate/deactivate depending on if the weapon is equiped one or two-handed? I.e. if the other hand is free then some ability kicks in. This would open some interesting options for bonuses when the single handed weapons are vouluntarily carried two-handed:

Club: Crushing blow only available when two-handed.

Axe: +50% damage when two-handed.

Sword: +1 counterattack and +10 dodge when two-handed.

Spear: +1 range when two-handed.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting jonasadolphson, reply 6
when the single handed weapons are vouluntarily carried two-handed

I could be wrong but I don't think there is a way to have a weapon be wielded either one or two handed.  Each weapon is one or the other.

So a particular type of axe could have a one handed version, and a seperate two handed version (with your +50% damage) but they'd essentially be 2 different axes.